


Inner Demons

by follower_of_lamashtu



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Choking, Drug Withdrawal, F/M, Hallucinations, Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 11:12:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3247529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/follower_of_lamashtu/pseuds/follower_of_lamashtu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen sends for Lavellan during some particularly bad withdrawals. He hallucinates that she is actually a demon wearing his sweetheart's face and rapes her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inner Demons

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the kink meme. Comments are always appreciated!

Briari Lavellan’s stomach flip-flopped inside her when she received the note from one of the Skyhold runners, though she couldn’t say what she felt precisely.

_Inquisitor,_

_Please come speak with me in my quarters at your nearest convenience. Having some trouble with the matter discussed earlier._

_Yours,_   
_Cullen_

‘The matter discussed earlier’ was how they’d ended up referring to his Lyrium recovery in official capacities, should anything be intercepted. She chewed at her bottom lip, wondering if she needed to bring anything with her.

“If he needed anything, he would’ve said so,” she forces herself to say out loud, making the thought more real, and thus a bit more convincing. It was late, so she was already in her sleeping gown, but her fluffy robe was warm enough to cover her from her room to his. She slipped on the first pair of boots she could find, and headed over to his room.

It wasn’t until she almost reached the tower that her state of relative undress dawned on her. She and Cullen had had a few stolen kisses on the ramparts, and they both had gotten shirtless at the lake in Honnleath, but they’d never gotten further than that. Briari had had dalliances in the past, but she and Cullen had been enjoying the slow progression. It made it feel like the world wouldn’t fall apart. Like it couldn’t, not for them, not yet. She decided to keep the robe on all night.

The door to Cullen’s office creaked slightly as she opened it. Two scouts stood in front of the desk, talking about something on the map, but they politely excused themselves mere seconds after spotting her. She locked the door behind them, then the other doors, and quickly laid down some magic to soundproof them as well. Cullen hated inconveniencing anyone with his problems, and she knew he would appreciate not having to fear waking others should his night terrors strike again. She climbed the ladder to his chamber when she was certain everything was taken care of.

“Cullen?” she asked quietly the moment she saw him. He was sitting up in bed, at the very least shirtless, the sheets covering his lower body. He was covered in sweat, and his eyes were so bloodshot she could see the redness from the top of the ladder. He ran his hands through his sweat-dampened hair and forced a pained smile at her.

“Inquisitor. Sorry to pull you away from your rest. I shouldn’t have. I think the worst of it for the night is passing now,” he said wearily. Briari took off her boots at the top of the ladder and walked over to sit beside him on the bed.

“Shhh, don’t apologize. Certainly not for this. I’m your…” she frowned. “We’re…” She stopped again. “I care about you a great deal. I want to help.” She placed a hand on his knee, and tried not to notice that it felt like he might be naked under the sheet. She leaned over and gave him a chaste kiss on his cheek. He took one of her hands in his, and she didn’t even complain about how clammy it was.

“It was bringing up some old memories from Kinloch Hold. Things I try to not think of. I was having some trouble telling what was real and what wasn’t. I thought… I thought having you near might be a boon,” he explained quietly, not meeting her eyes, but tracing soft nonsense lines on the back of her hand. She scooted a bit closer to him, resting her cheek on his shoulder and closing her eyes, inhaling his scent.

“You can tell me about it if you want, but don’t feel like you have to, either. I’ll help in whatever way you need me to,” Briari murmured against his neck. He took a deep breath before speaking.

“I don’t wish to go into detail. When I was tortured by those blood mages, several different demons tried to break me. None succeeded. I was just rather vividly reminded of my encounter with a rage demon. It tried to… convince me to be angry at my friends here helping me stay away from Lyrium. I had hoped your presence would help, but it went away on its own,” he said. He sounded so exhausted, looked so much older than his thirty years. Briari had always had a mostly subconscious fear and anger about templars, but seeing what the Order had reduced the man she loved to, she found the anger becoming more pronounced.

She shifted herself to hug him properly, wrapping her arms around his neck tightly. He slid his arms around her waist and hauled her onto his lap, setting her down side saddle and burying his face in her thick, dark red hair. They held each other quietly for several minutes, Cullen’s body occasionally shaking with the intermittent tremors they’d both grown used to by now.

“You know, this is the first time I’ve been up here before. Well, since you lived in it at least. Of course, I hear you don’t spend as much time here as you should either,” she said, blushing slightly when she realized the potential double meaning in her words. Cullen didn’t seem to mind, or react much at all, so she didn’t apologize. She noticed he didn’t even seem to hear her. She sat up a bit straighter.

“Cullen? Can you hear me?” she asked, looking into his face. He stared at her, but in a way that suggested he was looking past her. She very tentatively moved her hands to his shoulders. “Cullen? It’s Briari. It’s me. It’s just us, alone in your room. No one else is here. You’re safe.” Cullen’s nostrils flared as his breath became more labored. She shifted to kneel beside him, on hand on his upper chest, one on his cheek.

“Cullen? Commander?” she asked tenderly, leaning in close to his face. He blinked, and his eyes seemed to come back into focus on her face. Then they narrowed, and before she even felt him moving, his hands gripped her wrists, making her wince.

“How dare you take her form,” he hissed. “You think I could ever believe you were her? The Herald of Andraste? _My_ Inquisitor?” Briari’s eye went wide, and she tried to pull her hands away from him to no avail. She reached out for her magic, but before she could open her mouth, she felt a huge weight settle on her chest, and all her magic dissipated in an instant.

“What? Cullen, no, it is me! I think you’re hallucinating again,” she said, trying to tamp down the fear in her voice, trying to force herself to sound soothing. “Please, let go of me. That’s starting to hurt.” Rage flashed through Cullen’s honey brown eyes.

“Hurting _you_? What, is your game only fun when I can’t see through your tricks? I am stronger than this. Perhaps if I can defeat you here, now, while you have me ensorcelled, perhaps you will stay away,” Cullen nearly shouted as he shoved Briari onto the bed on her back. She cried out in surprise, and was quickly silenced by the former templar’s power. He swiftly moved to pin her legs to the bed with his knees, the sheet dropping away from him to expose his naked body. Briari tried to roll over, to get her feet back under her to run. He pressed a large hand to her collarbone and held her down easily, while his other hand tore at the robe wrapping her.

“You demons pervert every good thing I have. How dare you do it to Briari. This… fluffy robe,” he said as he yanked it away, forcing her arms up and tossing it to the floor. Her nipples hardened almost immediately as the cold of the room penetrated her thin nightgown. “Is this what she looks like? I’ve never even seen her like this, and yet you would use her against me.” Briari still couldn’t find her voice or her magic, silent sobbing beginning to wrack her body. The commander tore open the chest of her nightgown, the silk giving way easily all the way to her navel. She screamed wordlessly, thrashing under his hand.

“I _love_ her! And I will take my time courting her before we make love. You will not cheapen my affection from her with your lies and corruption,” he growled, leaning down over her body. She gave a great, wracking sob, his words so at odds with his actions. He’d never told her he loved her before. She looked down at the space between them and could see his erection, halfway to full hardness and quickly closing the distance. She could feel her own arousal as well, despite her anguish. She had to get away. She had to send up a healer, stop Cullen from hurting her and keep him from hurting himself. She craned her head to look about the room, to find anything in reach that could help.

He ripped the rest of the nightgown then, pulling the shreds from under her and quickly lashing her wrists together with them. She screamed again, and this time her voice was starting to return. The loud sound startled Cullen, and he let her go for a brief second. She surged away from him, getting out from beneath him in record time and scrambling for the foot of the bed. Her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach when his hands grabbed her hips from behind.

“Cullen! No! Please, it’s me, it’s Briari! Please, I love you, too, please don’t hurt me! You’re hallucinating! It really is me!” she cried into the room, not having the heart to look back at him. She yelped when she felt a hard slap right against her vulva.

“Silence, demon!” he yelled, wiping the wetness from her from his hand. “Her body would not be so lewd. You dare claim to be her and a wanton slut at the same time?” He practically roared in anger, his fingers digging into her skin painfully. She sobbed once more, then dropped her head onto the mattress, at least momentarily losing her will to fight him. She feels his weight shift behind her, and suddenly the hands give a great heave, pulling her back and impaling her fully on his cock.

Briari screamed, the sudden fullness aching despite her arousal. She felt her voice leave again, but she kept silently wailing and cursing as Cullen set a deep, rough pace. He pulled nearly all the way out, then drove back in, ramming into her body as though she held the cure for lyrium addiction somewhere deep inside her. He grunted every time he bottomed out in her tight, wet heat. Her hands balled into fists in his blankets and her sobs started to become audible once more. The rubbing of the sheets against her face had begun to leave a friction burn on her cheek, which she tried to focus on in an attempt to stave off the orgasm she felt treacherously building in her core.

“I hate this. When will it stop? When will you stop tormenting me? Have I not had enough?” Cullen hissed between thrusts. He pulled out of her abruptly, and she quickly tried to roll over, to beg, to make him look at her face, anything/ She made it onto her side when his hands were on her again, lifting one leg onto his shoulder effortlessly, despite her struggling. He shifted to straddle her remaining leg, though he hooked his foot around her ankle to keep her from kicking him.

“Please, please, Cullen, it’s me! It’s the Inquisitor! Please, stop, don’t, this isn’t a trick!” she sobbed. He leaned forward, making the muscles in her inner thigh stretch and burn. She gave one last scream as she felt his fingers wrap around her throat, keeping her quiet the old-fashioned way. She scrabbled at his wrist with her fingernails, but they were too short to be much good. She clawed angry red lines into his hand and arm, but the pain was never enough to make him cease pounding into her. She felt her vision go blurry from lack of air, and made loud noises of protest until Cullen released her throat.

The Commander seemed to be nearing completion. He shifted to kneel straight up again, giving her clit another slap before wrapping both arms around her leg and just thrusting into her deep and desperately. She whimpered and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood as the pleasure welled up past the breaking point in her traitorous cunt. She stifled her moan as she came around him, her pussy squeezing and releasing his cock in erratic spasms.

Cullen groaned, driving into her relentlessly. His breath hitched in his throat, and he gave a loud shout before she felt hot, sticky fluid gush inside of her. She covered her face with her hands and cried quietly into them, letting her body go limp as Cullen pulled out of her, the legs from his shoulder bouncing a bit on the mattress. Cullen collapsed onto the bed beside her, closing his eyes tightly and rubbing them.

Lavellan didn’t know what to do. She shook with emotion, and was nearly choking on tears and snot. Her clothes were torn. She didn’t want a healer to know what had happened. She didn’t want anyone to know. Cullen was a good Commander. She wanted to get away from him, but she didn’t want him kicked out of the Inquisition. She didn’t want anyone to know she’d been hurt, either. She didn’t want everyone to coddle her, to ask if she was alright a hundred times. She crawled to the edge of the bed and sunk onto the floor, wrapping the discarded robe around herself and curling up on the floor. She had every intention of crying herself to sleep when she heard the bed creak from movement. She closed her eyes tightly and cried more quietly, hoping that Cullen would leave her alone if he thought her sleeping.

“Maker… Briari?” he asked quietly, like he was hoping he was wrong. He sounded normal, like the Commander she loved. Against her better judgement, she cracked open an eye and turned her head to look up at him.

The moment their eyes met, several things happened all at once. Cullen seemed to choke on the air he was breathing, staring at Lavellan in horrified silence. Briari’s soft peals of crying quickly became body-wracking sobs, and she scrambled onto her knees to get away from Cullen, pressing her back against the stone wall and drawing her knees up to her chest, hugging them tightly, her hands gripping her knees with white knuckles. Cullen slowly moves to sit on the edge of the bed, pulling the sheet onto his lap to cover his still-wet manhood.

“I… Briari, I am so sorry. I can’t… even begin to say… Maker, please, I didn’t… it didn’t feel real… I can’t… I don’t…” Cullen tried several times to speak, but words seemed inadequate. It looked as though he were about to get out of bed, but Lavellan put her hand up.

“No! Please, don’t come any closer,” she begged, and Cullen sank into a deep slouch.

“Of course. That was… I should’ve known better,” he said. “Do you need me to send for a healer? Or I can leave. Maker, I’d leave the Inquisition entirely if you wished it. I deserve worse.” Briari tried to stifle her crying, but it took several minutes. Cullen stopped stammering, stopped trying to fill the silence.

“I know… I know why. You don’t need to explain,” she said, licking her lips and swallowing another sob before continuing. “Don’t tell anyone about this. Don’t… leave the Inquisition.” She refused to look at him, staring at the floor between her corner and the bed. Cullen slowly moved to take his pants off the floor and pull them on, making deliberate effort to let Briari know what he was doing.

“Would you like some clothes? Do you want me to leave the room tonight?” Cullen asked. Briari hissed, covering her eyes with her hands, pressing the heels against her eyelids.

“Stop asking me questions. Don’t… talk to me. I don’t want to look at you. I don’t want to be in this room that smells like sex. I don’t want to be in this skin that I used to want you to touch,” she whispered, rocking gently back and forth on the floor. She grabbed a scrap of torn cloth on the floor and began wiping her sore sex, trying to clean out as much of the Commander’s seed as she could. She heard Cullen choke on a sob as he watched her, but she couldn’t look up at him. She knew why he was upset, but she didn’t trust herself to not light him on fire if he dared express his own pain right then.

She stood up, slowly, her knees shaking under her weight as she slid back up the wall. her robe fell around her battered body, covering the bruises and the mess adequately. The hand-shaped mark on her throat would be harder to conceal, but as she fled Cullen’s quarters, she didn’t stop long enough for anyone to notice her.


End file.
